When wiring a newly erected structure, such as a residential home or commercial building, conduit for electrical wire will often be attached within the walls. The electrician will then insert the end of a piece of flexible steel tape--the fish tape--into one end of tile conduit and push it through to tile other end. Electrical wire will be attached to tile fish tape and the fish tape will be pulled completely through tile conduit by the electrician, thereby dragging the attached electrical wire along with it through the conduit.
It is often the case that the conduit will have one or more bends in it. While the flexible fish tape can fairly easily navigate these bends, the electrician at times faces a hard task in pulling the typically more stiff wire through the conduit and around these bends. In addition, even where the conduit does not include such bends, the frictional engagement of the electrical wiring with the conduit walls can create a significant drag force on the wiring, resulting in the need for great strength to pull the wiring through the conduit. Consequently, various tools have been developed to facilitate the electrician in pulling fish tape and the attached wiring through conduit.
Examples of such known tools can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,302,929 to Danielson et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,746,099 to Lopes; U.S. Pat. No. 4,819,911 to Cielker; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,022,633 to Lopes. The Danielson tool relies on a camming mechanism to grip the fish tape initially. The tool user can then pull on a pair of handles that extend outwardly in opposite directions from tile tape gripping mechanism to pull the fish tape through the conduit. Similarly, both Lopes patents rely on a camming action to grip the fish tape securely. The tool user then exerts a pulling force on the tool to pull the fish tape through the wall or conduit. Lopes '099 requires the use of both hands while Lopes '633 claims to be useable with one hand only. The Cielker tool grips the fish tape in a clamping action and includes a pair of handle members pivotable with respect to each other in the manner of a pliers to grip the fish tape. The Cielker tool is said to be capable of use with one hand.
Each of the aforementioned tools requires the use of either both hands or a single hand. None appears to be equally useable with either one or two hands as desired or as needed by the electrician. The Cielker tool, which is useable with one hand, is constructed so as to have gripping surfaces for the electrician's hands that lie nearly parallel to the direction of pull. This configuration makes it easy for the electrician's hands to slide off the tool and makes maintaining a grip on the tool generally difficult during use.